If you’d like to be a Captain, tell us so, and we’ll put you on our Captains list. (email: info@humanbanners-sf.com)

If we’re short Captains, we “draft” unsuspecting members of the crowd.

If we’re over-subscribed (it has happened once or twice), please enjoy the beach.

We usually have a minimum of two, and especially with big letters, often three Letter Captains per letter. A Captain's main mission is to encourage people to – as closely as possible – keep themselves INSIDE the lines that volunteers have etched into the sand, starting early in the morning.

From above, people overflowing the letter lines create sloppy, less impressive imagery. But there’s never any reason to be rigid about it. Captains are keepers of the peace and happiness, too. Some amount of inexactness showing up is expected, and even lends an interesting human touch to the imagery.

MAINTAIN THE FURROWS

Maintaining the furrows that volunteers have created to delineate the borders of “your” letter or border is another fundamental responsibility. When these furrows get erased — and they do, sometimes very quickly — please re-establish them as soon as possible. You may even want to draft people standing closest to the lines to help with the “policing.”
Re-establishing the lines: There are six hoes, two shovels, and two rakes at each event, but rarely enough to have one at each letter. (Feel free to bring an implement from home — hoes are best.) Wooden stakes (used in the etching process, usually easy to find on the beach) make good furrowing implements.

SPACING

The size of the letters varies from event to event. In narrower lettering (say 50’ tall x 5’ wide), we typically have attendees stand two abreast. At 75 feet tall x 7.5 feet wide, three abreast. 10 feet tall x 10 feet wide, four abreast.
In the lettering, we stand facing the ocean, with our backs to the seawall. On the border lines, attendees face the center of the image (or whatever works intuitively for them that day).
We generally “space” each successive “rank” (each line of two- or three- or four-abreast attendees) by having each attendee reach their right arm forward to touch the top right shoulder of the person directly ahead. It works. We’ll demonstrate this at the Captain's meeting.

SURVEYOR FLAGS

Since early 2025, we've been planting short, colorful surveyor flags in the sand to mark the border lines surrounding the event's central message. These shorties are spaced approximately 10 feet apart and tend to work pretty well, with or without furrows — but it’s always important to keep the border lines straight.
A good practice: Thank the attendees for their cooperation and assure them of the importance of their job. (It doesn’t hurt to point out that, when they're well-spaced, they’ll be better able to spot themselves in the aerial photos. They like this. We all do.)
In the border lines, we try to start out with people spaced five feet apart — about the distance of two people holding hands and stepping sideways until another few inches will break their “hold.” But as events progress, sometimes so many people arrive that five-feet-apart is hard to maintain. Sometimes each line winds up shoulder-to-shoulder. We have to go with the flow. Adjust on the fly.

IMPORTANT: No matter the distance between people, straight lines are crucial!

DOWEL ROD FLAGS

We have at least one “dowel-rod-flag" for each letter and each of the four border regions (east, west, north, south). At one end of each dowel rod is a green flag, meaning “more people needed here.” At the other end is a red flag, meaning “no more people here, thank you — please spot a green flag and move toward it.”
Dowel-rod-flags will be assigned at the Captains' meeting 60-90 minutes prior to overhead photography. Captains are responsible for monitoring their flag — red or green? — and keeping it raised high enough overhead for people to see it from a distance.

FINALLY

This entire project is a living, breathing work in progress. We learn new stuff at every banner, add new tweaks, and discard old un-useful stuff. If you’ve been a Captain before, you know.

Increasingly, our veteran-filled crowds tend to police themselves, but they can still get a little unmanageable at times. Take some breaths — always — and let the living breathing work-in-progress unfold. It always has.

THANK YOU FOR READING THIS!

Familiarizing yourself with the above will go a long way toward making the job easier, especially for first-timers. Veterans already know that it’s not hard, but usually fun and social – energizing as opposed to taxing. But it is ALL important.

Please send questions, comments, or suggestions to
info@humanbanner-sf.com.

THANK YOU!